Beyonce criticized over Grammys performance

Pop superstar Beyonce has been criticized by campaigners over her risqué performance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday.

The singer opened the show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles by performing her song “Drunk In Love” with her husband, rapper Jay Z, but her butt-baring stage costume and saucy dance moves have angered parents’ groups and female equality activists.

Many of her critics claim Beyonce’s performance was inappropriate for children, while others insist a barely-dressed woman dancing with a fully clothed man promotes inequality among the sexes.

Pippa Smith, of SaferMedia, tells Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, “There is something rotten at the heart of this so-called ‘music’ industry when young women celebrities and now a husband and wife start to behave in such an obscenely sexual manner at events popular with all ages. They are doing enormous harm to children’s perception of what is normal behavior.”

Mediawatch-UK spokeswoman Vivienne Pattison adds, “In this footage Beyonce is wearing a really skimpy outfit but Jay Z is not. If girls and women are seen exclusively as sexual beings rather than as complicated people with many interests, talents and identities, boys and men may have difficulty relating to them on any level other than the sexual.”